I have planned to do my first “official” SOTA activation in Ireland tomorrow. (I have been doing some operations from hills, but not calling as an activator)
I have planned to begin with IE-005 Kippure at approx. midday, and then continue onto IE-007 Djouce about 5Km from Kippure, depending on conditions on Kippure, but no later than 2PM.
I’d appreciate if some kind chasers would keep an ear out for me calling EI8FDB.
I will be activating with voice only. Regarding bands, I would like some advice on that.
I am still waiting for my 5MHz application. So I will be on the “traditional” bands.
Just so I have it correct: each QSO, on each band is one QSO?
What is the status of a QSO on another band, with the same operator?
My equipment will be an FT-817 (max 5W), multiband dipole, and a SLAB battery, so nothing too high-powered.
“8. At least one QSO must be made from the Summit. In order for the activation to qualify for the points attributed to that Summit, a minimum of four QSOs must be made, each of which must be with a different station.”
The pedantic view would be that working the same callsign on different bands is working the same station as in the UK, the licensing body views a station and callsign as the same entity. It’s somewhat open to argument as to whether a QSO to the same callsign on different bands is to differing stations.
In my view, if you worked someone 4 times on 4m/2m/70cms/23cms then I’d consider it as 4 QSOs, others may not. You’ve succeeded in getting RF to and from somewhere 4 times all of which are via potentially different propagation methods. It’s no more contrived than working 4 people standing on top of a hill, each using the same handheld but their own callsign, one after the other. The multiple band contacts feel more acceptable to me than the multiple people approach. But the multiple people set of contacts is most definitely a contact with a differing station.
From my own experience, your best bets for SSB will be 80m (around 3.665MHz) earlier in the morning and later in the afternoon. 40m will be better in the middle of the day (say around 7.118MHz or 7.090MHz). Of course, there’s always 2m SSB which should reach the keen chasers in GB if you have a decent beam.
And yes, in terms of the minimum 4 QSOs, a second contact with the same station on a different band will not count as a second towards the four. It is definitely beneficial to post an alert, and even more so to self-spot just prior to commencing your activation.